Erie mother of nine says she has learned a lot from raising kids

By Pam Mellskog For Hometown Weekly

Posted:
05/14/2012 12:52:07 PM MDT

Pam Boardwell reads a history book to her children while they study in the living room of their Erie home Tuesday morning, May 8. Boardwell is the mother of nine children. Her husband Matthew is pastor of Life Song Church of Erie. They home school their children. Pictured, from left, Jonnavin, 15, Jilliann, 12, Pam, and Zachary, 17. (Lewis Geyer/for Hometown Weekly)
(
LEWIS GEYER
)

Though newlyweds with no children then, they picked a family whistle inspired by the rooster's opening scene in Disney's Robin Hood film and practiced it to find each other in crowded places.

More than two decades later, Pam and the Rev. Matthew Boardwell's nine children ranging in age from 1 to 20 learned the tune, like their parents, to keep in touch.

But their family dynamic holds them together in so many other practical ways.

They know that a zoo trip means wearing matching colored shirts for easier identification in public; that meal time means eating together at an 181/2-foot-long table custom made by their paternal grandfather; that running errands also means fielding questions from strangers who often ask if any are twins or adopted.

A century ago, more parents shared this couple's perspective on family life. They saw nine or more iterations of their genetics and needed good child-rearing strategies to survive and thrive.

American families today include an average of two kids, according to the U.S. Census.

So, for most folks -- even those without children -- there is something new to be learned from an old way of life that requires careful prioritizing and budgeting to make all sorts of ends meet.

Ways and means

Pam Boardwell, 42, credits her husband, who pastors Life Song Church a block away from their home, for cooking two-thirds of their meals and home-schooling the older children so she can focus on home-schooling the younger ones.

Ultimately, though, she gets the most face time with the children and knows how to make the most of it.

For starters, that means posting a chore chart to encourage teamwork and refusing to let extra stuff slow her down.

"We try to keep things going out the doors. So, I always say 'Yes!' when a charity calls for a donation," she said.

The Boardwell family of Erie has dinner Saturday evening May 5. Pam and Matthew Boardwell have nine children. (Lewis Geyer/for Hometown Weekly)

She also bought into baskets early on in her child-raising adventure and keeps them in all sorts of strategic places. She puts items to be donated or returned to friends or stores in a basket by the door. Across from it, another basket holds board books and toys for the younger set of kids. Baskets also sit at the foot and the top of the stairs to corral items that need transport up or down.

In terms of grocery shopping, she insists that feeding nine kids is not nine times more expensive than feeding one kid.

Economies of scale at the grocery store and the stove help her bottom line considerably, she said.

To boost that benefit, she buys steeply discounted food only. Her rule of thumb? Pay no more than a dollar a pound for meat, poultry and produce and no more than $3 a pound for cheese.

"We eat what is on sale, not what we want," her husband said.

They still eat well and, as a musically inclined family, they often sing grace -- "God We Thank You" -- over meals in three-part harmony and in a round where the girls follow their mother and the boys follow their father.

From the outside, it might seem like Pam Boardwell parents day and night without a break, which is somewhat true as she still nurses the baby and tries to be available to listen to her teenage children who all want to talk with her around 9 p.m.

But she and her husband continue to hold tight to a helpful ground rule to keep their morning early birds in check: No one is allowed to stir before 7 a.m. -- something even the 3-year-old gets.

"Zephani knows what 7 looks like on the clock," Matthew Boardwell said.

Transformative motherhood

These systems work to maintain a semblance of peace and quiet and productivity in a household alive with so many different ages and stages.

Yet, even this mom needs to hit a personal pause button called "Sit time!," said son Zachary Boardwell, 17.

"She has to be pretty riled up to yell," he said. "But she will say this, which means that we all have to sit down and raise our hand if we need to talk because she feels bombarded."

Pam Boardwell said that having more children taught her to remain calm when overwhelmed, to find another way to deal with too much going on.

"I was probably more of a yeller when they were littler," she added, laughing. "That's probably the advantage of having these little ones in my 40s. I've got years of practice with being more patient."

Her kids call that patience love in word and deed.

"I like being around my mom," son Nathaniel Boardwell, 18, said. "She's a good person to talk to. She's easy to be around. And she's funny."

Daughter Katelynn Boardwell, 13, credited her mother's growing patience with their growing family as something that made her more fit to home-school them effectively.

"Besides that, she never goes a day without telling us that she loves us," she added.

Hearing her children comment on her parenting, which is not something they usually do, caused Pam Boardwell to sink into her easy chair at the end of a long day.

She realizes that, like each one of her nine children, she has come a long way.

"When I was single, everything had a very specific place. If a plate or a cup went missing, I would notice. I had to let go of that. Now, if a dinosaur toy gets lost, it is lost. People are more important that things," she said.

As the older children became more able to help with chores, she needed to let go of more, of wanting everything done exactly to her liking.

"That's been part of the learning, that what they do doesn't have to be exactly the way I would do it," she said.

Her faith and the way her mother and grandmother modeled patience remind her to continue pursuing her life's goal of being less selfish and more loving.

That sounds good to her children -- even when whistled.

"She whistles when she wants to get our attention, to call us to meals, to get us home from the park or to find us in a store. It's an easy way to do it. ... And it uses up a lot less breath than to call everybody's name," Zachary Boardwell said.